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Obsessed TV Report Card: The Leftovers

If I have one crystal-clear takeaway from the season premiere of The Leftovers, it's this: The world needs more dramatic Justin Theroux. I couldn't get enough of him on-screen—after the hour-and-15-minute episode, I think I finally nailed down a big part of the appeal: The top half of his face is all puppy eyes and surprised brows, and the bottom half is all stubble and gritty grimaces. It's a super-interesting effect and, of course, a very handsome one. (Up top, Jen Aniston, per usual.)

But anyway. We should talk about the show, which is based on Tom Perrotta's best-selling novel about the world recovering from a mysterious disappearance of 2 percent of its population—and which, I must warn you right up front, is already on a production hiatus, meaning its future is murky.

For now, we have six episodes coming down the pike, and the first one was intense. That's an overused word, but it's hard to find another one for a stretch of television that involves: a) a dog getting shot b) a deer getting torn apart by dogs c) super-creepy, white-clad mutes who pop up and surprise you everywhere d) an eerie protest followed by a crazy mob fight (see below) e) a high school party that made me never want to raise children in this world, because the teens were playing some souped-up version of Spin the Bottle on their phones. Choking and having sex were both involved. Big thanks to that app developer!

But it's also impossible not to be intrigued, based on the concept—my favorite moment was watching a fake news broadcast on the show flash the names of celebrities whom disappeared on that fateful day. Jennifer Lopez and Gary Busey were among them. Not Liam Neeson, which I'll count as an oversight, because unless Neeson got sucked up into the sky, he already would have found everyone else who was Taken.

The biggest problem with the pilot: too much setup. You need a lot of it in episode one of any drama, but with The Leftovers I already feel like I've got a ton to keep track of: all the characters, how they connect, which violent flashback belonged to whom, how Theroux's on-screen dad went crazy, why his wife left him, what the heck this cult is all about, who the random healer in the desert is—there's literally enough to fill three shows.

Still, partially for Theroux's fascinating face and partially for the suck-you-in main story line, I'll be tuning in next week. And hoping for enough answers to keep me interested in the questions.

Photos: Courtesy of HBO

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Megan AngeloEntertainment writer. I love talking about TV so much, you'll eventually back slowly away from me at a party.